Arizona weekly enterprise., 1887-07-16
THE BEAUTIFUL WEST INDIES.

A HeaIthfuI Climate and Magnificent
 Scenery-Plain and Cordillera. Those islands are as distinct in features as i'll origin. Some arc suggestive of a period when a large portion of our con- tinent was submerged in the ocean. Others are towering masses of trap rock, with cone like summits, declaring their volcanic descent. Others for ages have been in progressive state-the work of tho invisible zophite architect. Some have not yet risen above the belt of foam that marks their existence as coral reefs, and notifies the mariners of danger, while others soar above the tides and bloom with evidences of bounteous har vests. Servile insurrections, attended with great loss of property and life, have, in years past, retarded the prosperity of those islands. Shocks of earthquake there have alarmed the inhabitants, and the serenity of the heavens is often dis turbed by the desolating track of the hurricane. Large conhagrations have occurred there, as in the United States, but energy has surmounted those losses by fire, and better built houses have arisen from the ruins.
 ISNCHlDOl tO lllC ID delightful and healthy, even along the coast, where, in the summer months, yellow fever occasionally occurs. The mountainous regions or cordilleras, where the wealthy planters have their elegant residences, are blessed with perennial springtime and exempted from epidemic influences. The mean temperature of these highlands is about 70 Fahrenheit, and at the elevation of 2,500 feet you are securely fortified against the attacks of yellow jack. Beauty and sublimity in a pre-eminent de- gree are combined in the scenery of those cordilleras, especially in the blue moun- tains of Jamaica, the largest and most valuable island Of the British West In- dies. The loftiest peak of that ridge, which extends some fifty leagues in 1 length, is nearly 5000 feet high, although | the mean elevation does not exceed one 1 third of that measurement. The crest of l the chain is so sharp that in many places it is only four yards across; the escarp- ments are wild, the declivities steep, checkered in places with stately forest growth. The more elevated ranges are fianked by still lower ones, and these by verdant savannahs.
 A belt of intervening plain lies betweer the ocean and the blue cordillera and Ii frightened with tracks of guinea grass corn, sugar cane and groves of cocoa anC plantain proudly tossing their palmatet heads in unison with the lIlstling airs There are also seen the tapering furnace 1 IlIS5 slLId CI0totefS OI IdUOrerS huts But those evidences of culture and popu lation are not confined to the plain Lool up the steep, rugged side of the cordiller; and you will see where its precipitousnes does not render cultivation impossible Tie dark tint of the woodland that give a name to tine mountain chain is diyersi fled with the light green of cultivated fields aud golden shades of ripening cere als. You will sec abrupt cliffs dottet with white specks as points of rock, O perchancc reminding you of an eagle aerie. WI: with telescope these point are brou..>t closer to your vision, you be hcld one white speck transformed into ]; lovely country seat, others into hamlet nestling on the brows of precipices {, ,0Ou feet or more in height Bride path scarcely twelve feet wide are cut up tn sides of this cordillera to its gorges an, table lands, for journeys in the interio are generally made on horseback, as tn asperities of the country are unfavorabl to the transit of carriages. Baltimor American.